2014 primary election results

Tue, 05/20/2014 - 2:32pmJohn Munford

Steve Brown held off two opponents to win re-election to the Fayette County Commission, as all nine precincts have reported and he had a 321 vote spread with 52.6 percent of the District 3 vote over fellow former mayors Harold Logsdon and Don Haddix.

There will be a runoff for the Post 4 Republican primary as none of the four candidates won a majority of the votes. Diane Basham led with 948 votes at 38.79 percent followed by John Kimbell in second with 882 votes (36.09 percent). They will meet in the July runoff as Jane Owens finished with 360 votes and Mindy Fredrikson got 254 votes.

A runoff is also in order for the District 16 state senate seat as Marty Harbin of Tyrone will face Fayetteville resident David Studdard as they were the top to finishers. Harbin got 4,227 votes (26.33 percent) district wide to Studdard's 3,463 (21.57 percent).

Some 15,932 of the county's 70373 voters (22.64 percent) cast ballots in the election.

Comments

To be perfectly honest with you, Husband, I'm just plain tired so I'm not going to give you a complete run down of what our other four commissioners have accomplished.

I think we need to keep in mind that we are talking about a board. They work as a team. However, having said that, they don't always vote unanimously.

The first thing that comes to mind with Commissioner Allan McCarty is the online live stream broadcast of the commission meetings. Mr. McCarty has been in the television business his entire adult life. After serving on the previous board for two years, he was determined to do something for the citizens of Fayette County. He saw that the county had never utilized their ability to broadcast the commission meetings. With a whole lot of hands on work on his part, Commissioner McCarty made it possible for shut ins and folks with conflicting work schedules to view what goes on at the commission meetings.

Commissioner Ognio has been very outspoken about former commissions' practice of awarding county contracts to the same companies all the time. So, Randy Ognio has been instrumental in seeing to it that county contracts are awarded to the most qualified companies instead of awarding a contract to the same companies all the time just because that was easier than evaluating new companies. Prior to our current commission, county contracts were not based on lowest bid or best qualified applicants.

Commissioner Barlow has seen to it that our commission meetings continue to open with an invocation. In an effort to promote the good will of all Fayette citizens, Commissioner Barlow has made sure that all faiths have been able to participate in the commission meetings by inviting a different faith group to conduct the invocation at each commission meeting. In previous commission meetings, the same commissioner conducted prayer, nd that was it.

Commissioner Oddo is the most soft spoken of all our commissioners. However, still waters run deep. Commissioner Oddo is very concerned with solving county problems of the past. He is very good at evaluating past problems and devising a workable solution.

Needless to say, running a county is more than any one individual can do on their own. I know for a fact that our five commissioners work together to keep our ship afloat. They don't always agree on the methods but they are all professionals and work with one another because they all truly care about Fayette County.

to be on this BOC. Congratulations and let's hope that the PTC mayor and council can now work with Steve Brown and the other commissioners and vice versa.

We have a little over 30 months before the Obama regime will become a nightmare of the past for this country and I applaud all who have held office in this truly difficult time in our history. We have the right to criticize and question and show our angst over every tough decision that is made, but we all (me included) have never walked in the shoes of these public office holders and they deserve a pat on the back for taking our guff and still showing up to work for us every day.

That is not to say that tomorrow we will not do the same and speak out, but for this county, today, congratulations and a pat on the back to our elected.

Warts and all, he was the best choice. There is no question he works harder his challenger and others on commission. The county would have had a complete lack of leadership had he not been successful.

I think it will be close in November with Colson and McCarty. But that seat won't be important. I think Pota can bring a new perspective. It will be interesting to see who BR endorses. He was quiet this election (thank goodness).